The thief who has your stolen iPhone will use surprisingly sophisticated means to trick your passwords out of you. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

If your iPhone is ever lost or stolen, be extra careful about scammers attempting trick your Apple ID password from you. iPhone thieves reportedly have an elaborate system set up to scam this information, as it’s needed to make a stolen device much more valuable.

Matt Stopera had his iPhone stolen last February from his favorite bar in New York City. Like most of us, he was upset, but not overly so. Matt got a new phone and went about his life.

A year later, odd pictures of a Chinese man standing in front of an orange tree started appearing on his new iPhone, via iCloud.

Unlike most of us, Matt is a blogger on Buzzfeed. He wrote up a quick post on the site about the photos appearing on his iOS device, and got some attention for it. What happened next is nothing short of amazing.

SACRAMENTO — California just flipped the kill switch for smartphones, in a move to make iCrime a thing of the past.

Governor Jerry Brown signed into law State Sen. Mark Leno’s Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (Senate Bill 962). The law will affect any smartphone manufactured on or after July 1, 2015.

There’s some reason to hope that the kill switch will do for smartphones what sophisticated alarm systems did for cars: make stealing them less appealing than a pair of leg warmers. Car thefts plummeted 96 percent in New York City when engine immobilizer systems came into play.

SACRAMENTO — The state where the iPhone was born came a step closer to a law that might help keep it in your hands.

State Sen. Mark Leno’s Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (Senate Bill 962) passed the state legislature this morning with a 51-18 vote. Now it will move on to the Senate for a vote on amendments.

California won’t be the first state to flip the kill switch – that distinction goes to Minnesota, which heeded the call from consumers in May. If the law passes in the most populous state in the U.S. and the birthplace of the iPhone, it may mark a sea change in similar legislation. California’s law will affect any smartphone manufactured on or after July 1, 2015.

The number one rule when it comes to stealing an iPhone is to turn off Find My iPhone and restore iOS to factory settings. Every good thief knows this, but there are somanycluelessones who don’t; the latest of whom is a charming douchebag from Dubai named Hafid.

Hafid likes to cruise around various locales of the UAE and pose the shit out of them. What he doesn’t know is all his profound selfies and other photos on his stolen iPhone are being uploaded to the original owner’s Dropbox account. And she’s posting them all on Tumblr:

I am not a psychic, but I have a good idea where you and your iPhone parted ways.

If you’re desperately seeking it on Craigslist, chances are you lost your device – or had it stolen – over the weekend, especially at night. And probably at some fun destination – shopping, the beach, a bar – or heading there on your usual means of transportation (the car, a gas station or parking lot, or bus).